The New Yorker: Can Horse Racing Survive?

[Aerocraft67]

My takeaway from the piece is that the problem with horse racing is short term greed overriding long term welfare. Which you could say about a lot of things. In this case, we have too much pressure to race too many horses under dubious conditions to maximize profit, with catastrophic consequences. Juxtapose that with a waning public appetite for speciesism, and the outlook for horse racing is bleak.

Fair enough. The piece didn’t indulge in disingenuous revelation like, “OMG the horses die in the end,” with predictable reaction as a PETA hit piece, and no advancement in welfare of anything. The piece seemed as skeptical of anti-speciesism as it was the racing industry, calling out false equivalence with slavery, for instance. The most telling passage to me was this one:

“People in horse racing, like Alexander, share the goal of winning races, and some pursue it at the horses’ expense. But all of them are close to the animals, in a way their critics rarely are. Meetings of the California Horse Racing Board, which are open to the public, had become a nightmare for horsemen, Alexander told me. Animal-rights activists dominated the public-comment period, giving speeches. They had a lot to say about how the horses suffered, although they never seemed to know much about horses. It was tempting to direct their attention to the beef and pork and chicken industries, if animal suffering was their main concern.”

The article didn’t really cite fans or gamblers; kind of assumes us away as degenerates and computer arbitrageurs. It also didn’t pile on threats from sports betting and the like; probably because the focus was on the threat of waning tolerance for speciesism to an industry based on just that. But a hit piece would have piled up the evidence that horse racing is doomed and should be.

I agree with the comment here that the Santa Anita situation as the centerpiece is a conspicuous lag. More recent evidence didn’t really add much. And the passage about Stronach owning the whale club is quite a revelation—it kind of buries the lead. If this was a hit piece, Stronach took the punch.

Maybe I’m a “welfarist,” or just naive, but I hope the industry can reform into something acceptably sustainable and wholesome. It doesn’t have to be so self-destructively uber. But I say that about a lot of things.

[Sysonby]

Racing in more highly regulated jurisdictions actually seems to be doing fine. We'll see but a big game changer is coming with the new legislation that was passed and USADA getting involved with drug and medication enforcement, so within a few years we'll be able to see what difference that makes.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Sysonby

Racing in more highly regulated jurisdictions actually seems to be doing fine.

This.

It's not that there will ever be no drugs. Obviously sometimes people get ahead of the tests.

But where it is taken seriously, doping is a concern, not a massive problem.

[classhandicapper]

I can't take any article that uses PETA as a reference seriously.

The welfare of the horses is #1 on on my list of concerns. We are toast long term without that. I even think PETA has a few constructive things to say. However, PETA also has many views that aren't in sync with mainstream thinking. Even worse, it unquestionably has eliminating horse racing as one of its primary long term goals.

PETA is an extremist organization.

IMO, no one in the industry should be talking to PETA and giving them credibility. The industry should consider anyone that does talk to them or use them as a reference (increasing their credibility) to essentially be an enemy of the industry. Appeasement won't work when the goal is destruction. We don't need extremists or their sympathizers in the media telling us how to fix things. Everyone knows what's wrong. We need the will to fix it. It won't be easy or painless.

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by Sysonby

Racing in more highly regulated jurisdictions actually seems to be doing fine. We'll see but a big game changer is coming with the new legislation that was passed and USADA getting involved with drug and medication enforcement, so within a few years we'll be able to see what difference that makes.

Sysonby, can you (or anyone reading this) name a few such example jurisdictions?

[Jayhawk6191]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

Sysonby, can you (or anyone reading this) name a few such example jurisdictions?

I know nothing about Australia, but any jurisdiction is more regulated than any in the USA. This was posted earlier in the thread and it makes you realize how poorly the USA tracks as a whole have done to grow handle

Originally Posted by Onesome

Total wagering in Australia has doubled since the turn of the century, harness/doggies 5X in the same timeframe, sports betting 10X.

Now a lot of that growth is fixed odds/exchanges/bookmakers, but to me it's clear how things seems to be better down under with a more modern system while things slowly die in the US grasping to their 25% takeout pools.

http://publishingservices.racingaust...2019-2020/100/

[Robert Fischer]

Originally Posted by Jayhawk6191

I know nothing about Australia, but any jurisdiction is more regulated than any in the USA. This was posted earlier in the thread and it makes you realize how poorly the USA tracks as a whole have done to grow handle

I don't know Australia well.

I'm also not sure exactly what Sysonby meant (and I remember him as being a valued contributor, but I don't recall if he was from Australia?).

I guess, I was wondering about the reverence that 'Hong Kong' has been mentioned here where it allegedly has the entire horse population under one transparent centralized stable team, would be the most regulated and supposedly free of PED use. I don't know if this is true.

I know even less of Japan and Korea racing, but I suppose they have a possibility of being under a similar structure.

Australia, Great Britain, France, Dubai, everywhere give off the perception that there are less small-scale coups/scams than in the US, but that it is very good to have one of the higher percentage trainers and be a preferred client. I don't know how true this perception is.

The U.S. is the wild west, and I have a perception that some of the higher quality meets at least maintain a certain respect to the game, and do attempt to enforce the rules, but are up against it in power dynamics.

Regulation is not always a cure all. There's times when regulation and oversight can favor certain select PED users over others. There also has to be transparency. I don't know enough about the subject to really offer much of a competent contribution.